


La Rose et l'Epine

by Kerowyn6



Series: Catherine d'Albon Is Sad and Gay [1]
Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: French Wars of Religion, In which I pretend Catherine d'Albon didn't die in 1564 at the age of 18, Multi, Not happy guys I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 13:37:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11692761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerowyn6/pseuds/Kerowyn6
Summary: Catherine d'Albon, and those she has loved.





	La Rose et l'Epine

**Author's Note:**

> "Expect Philippa and Catherine heacanons upcoming," I said, and then somehow my happy headcanons were mugged and brutally beaten in an alleyway and this fic happened. This was way out of my comfort zone to write for so many reasons, but here it is. I hope it's coherent. I was very happy to be able to sneak one of my favorite historical figures into Lymond fanfic.

_1558._

  


“Catherine,” says Madame Marguerite la Maréchale de Saint-André, “this is Monsieur François de Sevigny. We are discussing a betrothal.”

And Catherine smiles. In the court of Catherine de Médicis, one learns to smile at the enemy. 

  


_1571._

  


“Catherine,” says Madame Marguerite la Maréchale de Saint-André, “this is Monsieur Henri de Navarre. We are discussing a betrothal.”

The young man is tall, well-built, with glossy brown hair and a scrappy goatee stuck on as an afterthought. He looks, thinks Catherine sourly, rather like an enthusiastic but skittish young colt. A thoroughbred, with all the trappings of power, but he’s never run a race in his life and he knows it. 

“I must clarify, Madame,” the colt says, a half-smile flitting over his lips: “not to you.” 

“I should hope not, sire,” she says, mildly amused. “I am, after all, a Madame.”

“ _La mienne? Je ne pense pas._ Polygamy is, after all, frowned upon among the civilized Catholics, and particularly for the fairer sex.”

And for a moment she forgets his terrible goatee and his fundamental air of incompetence and allows herself to fall in love, just a little, before taking it all back and shutting it quietly in a neat locked box.  
__

  


_1558._

  


__  
“Have you read the Institutions?” asks Philippa, her thick brown hair spread out over her cocked shoulder. It looks deliberate, like the careful greys of her luxurious dress and the angle of her head. Everything about Philippa at court is deliberate, as if someone sat her down one day and gave her a checklist on how to be a woman. No one else seems to notice this about her, but Catherine does.

“I’ve...never found the time,” she says. It’s true, but not honest. The honest answer is that she’s never looked for the time. She leaves Calvin to her mother. Not that she would admit it to a soul (and certainly not Philippa; dear, intelligent, patronizing Philippa) but she hasn’t read any Geneva. She finds it impenetrable. It is not that she dislikes reading: it is that there is so much anger in those pages. The world, Catherine thinks, is an angry enough place: better to take the outcome of that anger and use it for something else. Let other people tear down the old world. Catherine will work on building a new one. 

Philippa gives her a small smile which is carefully reassuring. “It seems to me a most relevant work. Monsieur le Comte encouraged me to read it.”

Of course he did, thinks Catherine. Monsieur le Comte spent time in Russia: he was no Orthodox. He spent time in France: Catherine had bet her life that he was no Catholic, and the gamble had paid off. 

Brushing a strand of hair back from her face, Philippa stands and makes her way to Catherine’s small harpsichord. “May I?” she asks, and for a moment her mask drops and Catherine sees a young girl, all alone in a strange land, whose extended hand of friendship has been swatted away one too many times. 

Catherine nods pleasantly. “And may I sing to your playing?”

The smile she receives slips out from under Philippa’s carefully painted skin, and it melts Catherine’s heart. “May the nightingale keep company to the storm? I hope so, Catherine. Otherwise there is no point in braving the rain.” 

So for the duration of the song Catherine lets herself fly free and in love before she is called back to the jesses. The French court is, after all, known for licence.  
__

  


_1570._

  


__  
“In June the Prince of Navarre will be paying the court a visit. Henry.” Her mother is embroidering a pillowcase with long, flowing stitches. A rose. “I believe it will be good for the country. The Catholics can hardly continue executing Calvinists if they are hosting one, now can they?”

“They might,” points out Catherine. “The French court is known for licence. They may not be able to stop themselves.”

The threaded rose grows. “I don’t believe,” says her mother quietly, “that my lady Catherine has ever done a thing in her life without thinking it through three times and acting it through once. I trust my queen.”

“Be that as it may, Queen Catherine can hardly control a crowd.” The words are rote. Her mother does not want to hear what she truly fears.

“No?” Her mother’s smile is blank. She switches thread, swiftly and with experience. “You think one person cannot control the masses? I have seen it happen.”

“As have I. But mistakes are made. And there are so many people in Paris.”

“They will do as her Highness wishes,” says her mother with certainty. Her long fingers dart in, out, in, out of the fabric, and a thorn starts to form. 

That, thinks Catherine with foreboding, is what I am scared of.

  
__  
1564.  
  


In her dream, Catherine is a girl, perhaps eighteen, and she is dying. 

When she wakes she is a woman grown and alive in a strange land. 

Edinburgh is cold in the spring (Catherine has been reliably informed that Edinburgh is always cold). Her hands are lined in fur, but the early morning gives her shivers anyway. She stands on the stone path outside Holyrood Abbey, and she waits. She does not wait long. A man makes his way down the path towards her: short, lithe, dressed in courier's clothes. She cannot make out his face in the darkness. She pulls herself up.  
  
"Hallo," says Philippa Somerville, her long brown hair bound up under a hat, her smile wide and carefree and the happiest Catherine has ever seen her. "Lovely morning, isn't it?"  
  
Whatever words Catherine planned have fled in her surprise. The best she can muster is an appearance of offended propriety. "Why," she says slowly, "are you dressed as a man?"  
  
"Scandalous, isn't it," agrees Philippa happily. "But more scandalous for my husband and I to associate openly with the French. We did make a promise."  
  
" _He_ made a promise," reminds Catherine stiffly. "But, my lady, I hope I do not offend when I say that he made many promises."  
  
"Mention of my husband's infidel relationship with vows is a constant source of amusement in my otherwise dreary life. But Catherine, you do offend: I had hoped," she says, taking Catherine's chilled hand in her own, "that I would be Philippa to you. It has been many years since we saw each other. I had hoped those years would have paved over the cracks in the road, not widened them."  
  
Catherine squeezes her hand out of preemptive comfort. "My lady Philippa," she says, gesturing for her to lead onwards, "cracks in the road do not repair themselves. Only we can do that."  
  
"Then let us." Philippa's gaze is open and honest. "With talk and good wine that my husband will not partake in. We will return you before dawn; slightly tousled, but none the worse for wear."  
  
Catherine does not open the box with her heart in it. She will never let that road be repaired. But, she thinks, perhaps together they can build a sturdy bridge over the chasms. So she follows Philippa through the winding streets of Edinburgh to a quiet pub where, in the pre-dawn light, she reunites with those she once called friends.  


  


_1572._

  


  


Catherine is running, flying through the rooms of the palace, leaving her mother safe in her quarters. No one can tell her what she wants to know.  
  
“Where is Henry?” she asks everyone she comes across. She doesn’t receive an answer. “Where is the Prince?”  
  
Only the streets of Paris will hold answers to that. 

  


  


_1558. ___

____  


She interrupts him playing the lute; methodically, at an impossible speed, and with the emotive expression of a slab of granite. “I’m sorry,” she says on reflex, when he looks up. “I wanted to thank you again. Properly.”  
  
His cold blue eyes study her. “Properly?”  
  
“Well,” she says, self-consciously rubbing at her chin, “without breaking into tears, at least.” He doesn’t respond but, determined, she sits down next to him. “Have you ever hated yourself for crying?”  
  
“For crying? No.” He places the lute down carefully. “For feeling? Yes.”  
  
She doesn’t put her hand on his. She doesn’t smile. But she does look at him, long and open, and she thinks she sees some of the hinges behind his eyes swing out. “Thank you,” she says, and she means it. “You saved my mother’s life.”  
  
“You’re welcome,” he says. He holds her gaze. Then: “Have you read your Chrétien?’  
  
The non sequitur catches her by surprise, as she’s sure he intends it to. “Yes. Many times over.”  
  
“I’m glad. Your favorite?”  
  
“What but the Knight of the Cart?”  
  
“What indeed.” His lips follow the path of a smile. “I’ve always been partial to Perceval, myself. When I was young I used to imagine being a knight. Then I went to war and found out for myself. I have discovered that the true ladies are few and far in between, Catherine, and the true friends farther.”  
  
“I should imagine,” says Catherine, “that it is hard to find either ladies or friends on a battlefield.”  
  
“Indeed. It is fortuitous that we will be married far from the frontier.”  


  


_1571._

  


  
“My lady Catherine,” says Henry of Navarre, “what a pleasant surprise to meet you here.”  
  
Catherine looks around. ‘Here’ is a perfectly ordinary stone corridor. She very carefully does not step toward him. “Monsieur de Navarre. The pleasure is all mine.”  
  
He is carrying a book, something leatherbound in dark blue. “It is a happy man who meets a kindred spirit so far from home. They tell me you read histories.”  
  
“When I have the time. The romances as well.” There’s a noise filling her ears like the rushing of a river.  
  
His smile is earnest and bright, his eyes shrewd. “Delightful. I have always loved Tristan and Iseult.”  
  
“Somehow,” she says with a chuckle, “somehow I imagined you would.”  
  
“Catherine!” He widens his eyes. “Have you been imagining things about me?”  
  
“As subtle as a mallet to the head,” she observes drily. “Please, comment on my embroidered bodice, Lancelot.”  
  
He grins. “My apologies, Lady Catherine.” He doesn’t look at all sorry. “I would prefer to be Guinevere. I am, after all, marrying a complicated kingdom.”  
  
It’s tempting, so tempting, to lean in just a little and tilt her head up, and to follow him back to his quarters and spend a night talking of the romances and of romance and then of onomatopoeia, and to be behind the door that opens in the night. It has been a long time since Catherine d’Albon considered opening her box for good. Perhaps since the marriage of the old Reine Dauphine, Mary Queen of Scots, when she opened the lid to two people and two kinds of love and was left empty and alone in a dark room. She does not think that she would be left empty and alone by Henry of Navarre, but someone would be.  
  
And because she is not Philippa Somerville, she steps back graciously and doesn’t do any of what she is tempted to do. “A complicated kingdom indeed. Accompany me to the King’s library, my lord, and perhaps you can tell me how you and King Arthur intend to marry the religions.”  
  
And because he is not Francis Crawford, he grins a bright and carefree grin and, stepping forward, says: “Gladly.”  


  


_1566._  


  


Catholics kill Protestants, she thinks, the missive of David Rizzio’s murder in her hand, and Protestants kill Catholics. But only Catholics seem to be pulling the strings. And what is there to choose between Catherine de Médicis and Margaret Douglas?

  


  


  


_1572._

  


  


_Dieu qui soit mon père et mon compère, gardez ma mère de douleur, gardez mon meilleur ami Henri pendant ce siècle effrayant, et gardez les deux peuples de la France pour que nous trouverons un jour la paix._ The stone presses into her knees, and it keeps her focused over the impending sense of catastrophe. Please, Lord, she thinks. You can take me but protect my mother, my friend, and my people.  
  
She rises, and goes in search of Henry. They have a book to discuss. 

  


  


  


_1548._

  


  
“Mama?” asks Catherine, trimming the thorns from a rose stem. “Why are men always killing?”  


  


_August 23rd, 1572._  
The streets are full of death. Catherine is no stranger to suffering, no stranger to pain. After all, she has spent years in correspondence with the Count and Countess of Lymond and Sevigny. But there is no suffering like massacres in the streets, and no pain like that horrible ignorance of whether you have lost another dearest friend.  
  
Catherine is nothing if not logical, so she heads to the Hôtel de Ville. If he has left the city, they will know. If he is dead, they won’t.  
  
She makes it. They know. He is fleeing back to Navarre, far away from the Catholics and the Médicis and her. The feeling of relief is immeasurable, and the feeling of betrayal as well. But she cannot hate him for it. It is what she did all those years ago: cut ties that were binding her down, act rationally, and wait for a better day. _Politiques_ , the two of them. And so, feeling numb inside, she sets back out into the bloodbath that is Paris.  
  
She makes it as far as Notre Dame, where a panicked man pushes her to the ground and a panicked horse steps on her leg and a perfectly calm royal guard skewers her neatly between the ribs. The first stars have come out over the ornate dome of the cathedral. They see the same stars in Scotland, she thinks, and in Navarre. She feels something wet against her cheek, and realizes it’s her own blood. The stars will tell them.  
  
Someone will come for me.  
  
Catherine closes her blood-stained eyes, listening to the screams of her people, and waits.  
  
No one comes.

**Author's Note:**

> So...the good news is that Henry of Navarre did wind up becoming king of France and passing a religious toleration act after (nominally) converting to Catholicism. The bad news is that the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre was a very real, very tragic event, and also that my dude Henry was assassinated by a Catholic extremist in 1610.


End file.
